QUESTION: What is the U.S. going to do about an embassy in Libya? Is there a building that already exists that gets refurbished? Is there a new one? And what embassy is the U.S. operating out of now?

MR. ERELI: All good questions, but somewhat premature. You’re obviously referring to the announcement yesterday that we would be restoring direct diplomatic ties with the Government of Libya. What this means in practice is that we will be ending our protecting power agreement with Belgium and dealing directly with the Government of Libya on those issues which are -- which will -- on those issues which are part of our working relationship with the Government of Libya.
In, I guess, physical terms, it doesn’t signal that much of a shift in the sense that we have a diplomatic property there that was in -- that is in a terrible state of disrepair. It is not a property that we are close to inhabiting. I’m not even aware that we’ve sort of decided what we’re going to do with the property.
So those are questions, I think, that are dealt with far down the road. We have a limited number of diplomatic personnel there to do the work that we have with the Libyans and they’re working out of a hotel until an interim property is located. That hasn’t happened yet, so it’s temporary quarters for now.

QUESTION: A follow-up. Are there Libyan officials here in the U.S. meeting with officials this week?

MR. ERELI: I’ll have to check on that. I know that there was some interest among you about whether Libya has opened an interest section here or what their plans are. Libya was invited on February 26th to open an interest section in Washington. They haven’t done so yet. As far as what their plans are, I’d refer you to them.

QUESTION: Can you take the question, if they’re here meeting? And also, if they were invited, they were invited to have an interest section, but you just opened up a liaison office.

MR. ERELI: Right.

QUESTION: So are you inviting them to raise the level of diplomatic representation here?

MR. ERELI: Well, we have done that. I think that’s a little bit premature, since they haven’t yet had an interest section. But, obviously, we’d be willing to entertain, I think, whatever proposals are appropriate and necessary to conduct the level of business that we need to conduct.

QUESTION: Is there already an existing Libyan embassy?

MR. ERELI: In Washington?

QUESTION: Yes.

MR. ERELI: Well, I’m not aware if there is a property that used to be a Libyan embassy and what the status of that property is. Let me check on it and see if our buildings -- our Office of Foreign Missions has anything on that for you.